By Sara Ballenger
 Photo by Joe Hu, Town Crier |
With the graduating class of 2002 also comes one of the tightest job markets Silicon Valley has seen in a long time. What should someone new to the job market do?
Marty Nemko, author of “Cool Careers for Dummies,” gave career advice to students at a May 22 job fair at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills.
“Don’t think that picking the ‘right’ career will necessarily make you happier,” Nemko said. “Most people’s happiness comes from within. Think of how many people with ostensibly cool careers are miserable. I mean Janis Joplin and John Belushi all committed hara-kiri.”
Noticeably absent from the job fair were dot-coms, which left some students wondering about their futures.
“I am looking for a technology position in computers,” said Foothill student Andrew Christiansen. “Getting a job depends on what you want to do and how qualified you are. You have to prove to an employer that you know something. I have turned in a lot of resumes and haven’t gotten any call-backs - it’s depressing.”
Christiansen hopes that furthering his education and gaining more specialized skills will help him get a job.
Karen Oeh, Career Center coordinator at Foothill hopes that students will also educate themselves about possible career options.
“Last year we had a lot of high-tech and high-profile employers,” Oeh said. “The trend this year is in health care, human services and government.”
Yvonne Syltan, representing San Jose Good Samaritan Medical group at the job fair, said it is good for students to “think out of the box.” She gave the example of always needing nurses and health-care workers, but also for students to look for clerical or administrative jobs in medical settings.
Nemko suggested eight potential careers for students to look into, ones which he thinks offer meaningful work, pleasant conditions, decent pay and good job security. He suggested students consider being an audiologist, electrician, home-stager or someone who arranges homes for home sellers, lighting designer, locksmith, optometrist, school psychologist and speech therapist.
“Jobs are getting highly competitive, depending which area you are looking into,” said Foothill student, Sara Chaney. “There may be a lot of job openings, but that doesn’t mean a business is always hiring.”
Another suggestion Nemko offered is self-employment.
“Self-employment may be your best shot at big bucks, and enrepreneurship can be learned,” he said. “One frequent commonalty among 750 millionaires is they owned dull-normal businesses such as sand blasting and a used truck part brokerage. These people loved their work because they owned the business, were in high demand and earned a great living.”
Perhaps the most important thing for new graduates and college students to remember when in the job market is that persistence pays off, he added.
For more information, contact the Foothill College Career Center at 949-7229.
